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Book Review On: The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton

At home in Surry, Juliet Ashton writes all day in her small study while her two dogs stare at her. The rest of her house, which is full of music and books and comfy places to sit, she shares with her twelve- year-old daughter and her husband, who’s a composer (hence the music). She belives whole heartedly in the power of books to improve lives, increase understanding and while away happy hours.

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is … don’t make any afternoon plans.

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it’s said in the wrong way.

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of forty. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?

My Review

A massive thank you to Simon and Schuster for putting on these wonderful giveaways the do on Twitter; to which I won this book as part of a bundle! What a luck lady I am!!!!

I adore every thing about this front cover! Isn’t it just a delightful?!?! I love the turquoise backing, and the way the title coloured in white bold lettering, drawing you eye’s right in! Then around the title its bursting with blooming flowers, wine glass, tea-cup, a ring in a box and at the bottom a dinner place setting. At the bottom the author’s name is coloured in a dark blue. All in all this cover is wonderful and dear I say a perfect cover!!! It kind of gives you a bit of an insight to thing’s that may happen in the book!

Since I read The Woman at Number 24 I have been eager to discover more of her stories! I think it’s because her characters are like normal everyday people; making them relatable!

The Sunday Lunch Clubby Juliet Ashton based around the Piper family. They devised the Sunday lunch club, where each family member take it in turns to host the club at their home. Their lunch’s also had addental members in the form of stray friends.

The Piper family consists of an ageing grandmother Dinkie, siblings Neil, Anna, Maeve and Josh. Their parents moved to Florida, leaving their grandmother to keep the family all together. All the grandchildren become a bit concerned about their grandmother and the care she is receiving at her care home; when asked she say’s she is fine. But is she?

Anna 40 single divorced runs a business called Artem Accessories with her ex husband in an office built-in her back garden. At Paloma’s welcome party she has a steamy encounter with the cocktail waiter; which will give her the shock of her life months after!

Her brother Neil is married to his Spanish husband Santiago. The couple is going through the long and stressful adoption process to adopt 3 and a half month old Paloma. Santiago is flamboyant and clearly a good father but Neil struggles with not just his daughter but the whole coming out thing and the way his parents treaded him. His also is finding it hard seeing the way his grandmother is with his family unit and thinks she isn’t accepting him being gay or Paloma. But is her wrong about this? Can he deal with being a father?

Maeve and Josh are the younger of the siblings. Maeve is a single hippy and vegetarian she has a teenage son Storm. And Josh well he sometimes ducks out of Sunday Lunch Club, but when he is there he seems really with drawn and not himself, which doesn’t go unnoticed. But what is going on? Is Maeve happy on her own? Will find her special someone? How will Storm feel?

Josh introduces his Italian friend Luca to his family and friends and is welcomed into the group. Luca and Anna have an immediate connection and start a steamy relationship. Luca accepts her whole situation and they seem to get along just nicely but when she finds a photo in his wallet of him with another woman who puts their relationship into question. Could Anna have got it wrong? Is she about to go into the next part of her situation alone with out him? Will she give him a chance to explain? Is Luca and Josh holding something back from the family? How did Josh and Luca meet? Why is Anna hiding her secret?

Wow, what a book! I have to admit right now that I read The Sunday Lunch Club twice, it’s really that good! I felt totally engaged to all the characters and each one’s individual trills and tribulations they all go through. I love at the start of each Sunday lunch club there was the name of who was hosting and the lunch that was being served; which on some occasions made me hungry!!!! The author has made the story’s so relatable, because lets face it all families have their quirks and the Piper family have them in abundance. I have to say there are a few giggly parts which did get me laughing while I read; which is always a plus in my eye’s!!!!!!!!!

The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton shows a modern family, with normal everyday problems, how they come together and at the end of the day only want’s what’s best for each family member. Juliet has written another ace book in my opinion and was just as good the second time around! I will be eagerly awaiting her next book for sure!

Marie’s Book Boutique gives

The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton

A Truly Wonderful 5 Sparkly Stars (I wish I could give it more, I really do!!!)